Hard disk drive (HDD) systems typically include one or more data storage disks with concentric tracks containing information. A transducing head carried by a slider is used to read from and write to a data track on a disk, wherein each slider has an air bearing surface that is supportable by a cushion of air generated by one of the rotating disks. The slider is carried by an arm assembly that includes an actuator arm and a suspension assembly, which can include a separate gimbal structure or can integrally form a gimbal.
As the density of data desired to be stored on disks continues to increase, more precise positioning of the transducing head and other components is becoming increasingly important. In many conventional systems, head positioning is accomplished by operating the actuator arm with a large scale actuation motor, such as a voice coil motor, to position a head on a flexure at the end of the actuator arm. A high resolution head positioning mechanism, or microactuator, is advantageous to accommodate the high data density.
The manufacturing of components of HDD systems often includes providing an electrical connection via solder material between various components, either by direct connection between such component surfaces, or by connecting bonding pads attached to at least one of the component surfaces. One particular current process for connection involves the use of a single square wave laser pulse that is applied to a solder ball, with the amount of laser energy applied by the single pulse being balanced to provide for both the thermal energy for initial melting of the solder sphere as well as the desired amount of thermal energy for reflow to provide a satisfactory connection between components. The use of such a single high intensity pulse results in the total thermal energy put into the solder sphere occurring in a relatively short time period (typically while still in a capillary and/or shortly after exiting the capillary) results in a considerable amount of heat conducted into the capillary wall. Additionally, since the reflow energy is put into the solder sphere as thermal energy, the final sphere temperature is far greater than that of the required melt temperature, which during the interconnect formation process can cause large amounts of the localized heat to transfer to a slider or other component when it impacts the surface. Thus, there is a desire to provide additional solder placement techniques that allow for accurate solder connections in high density applications.